Supernatural: Honestly, I’m surprised he lived this long

THEN: I met Ben Edlund at Comic Con in 2011. He was walking through the lobby of the convention center like people, so I went up to him. He was super nice and patiently waited while my brain downshifted from OH MY GOD THAT’S BEN EDLUND to forming complete sentences. I shook his hand, congratulated him on directing “The Man Who Would Be King,” and told him how much I was looking forward to Season 7. He was delightful and gracious. I told him how relieved I was that Bobby survived Season 6, and that Sera-penned episodes always caused me to worry for Bobby’s safety and well being. Ben Edlund told me that the writers didn’t actually have the power to just randomly kill off characters. And then he paused, and said Sera is the Executive Producer. I guess she does have that kind of power.

And that’s how I killed Bobby Singer at Comic Con.

*sigh*

Let’s do this.

NOW …

CSI-vision camera pull through the bullet hole that’s just a few inches above Bobby’s right eye. Dean and Sam yell at each other in the van. “Is he dead?” “JUST DRIVE!” Sam applies what first aid he can while Dean dials 911 for the location of the nearest trauma center. Could you imagine that Siri commercial? Bobby takes a stroll through the sunlight dappled Pine Barrens … but something. isn’t. right. “No kidding, Bobby. There’s a corpse in a tree.” Blood drips onto Bobby’s hand. He reaches up under his cap. A dark stain appears through the blue denim. More blood on his fingertips. “Something bad’s about to happen … or something bad’s happened already.” They go back to the squat, and “Balls!” Bobby realizes he’s been shot in the head. He struggles to remember something important that he needs to tell the boys. Not the confused Sam and Dean in the ramshackle house in his head, but the real ones “in the waking world.” He writes down a series of numbers – 4 8 15 16 23 42 5 4 8 9 5 – and shoves the paper into his coat pocket.

“You just gonna stand there or hand it over, Bobby?”

He’s standing in the doorway of his bedroom holding a glass of red wine. There are lit candles all around the room and his wife Karen waiting for him in bed (in a white nightgown of DOOM, it should be noted). Was he expecting Farrah Fawcett? “No, she always calls first.” That’s what he said the first time this happened. He struggles with the joy of seeing his wife again and the dread of remembering what night it is. There’s a roll of thunder that’s out of place in the memory. Bobby looks out the window and watches as the stars and moon slowly fade into darkness. A young boy jogs away from a shed on the edge of the property as the trees are swallowed up by the black.

“Mother Mary. I have got a messed up fruit cake.”

He apologizes to Karen, but he has to go. He walks through the door and into a job with Rufus. Yay! Rufus! “The number one trick? Is to act like you know what you’re doing, Bobby.” They’re both wearing jumpsuits with “PEST CONTROL” labeled on the back. Bobby tells Rufus he needs his help. He’s going to die! Rufus thinks his partner is just being realistic about “the mortality rate on a ghost hunt.” Rufus fires up the EMP, turns around his cap, and walks into the church. Before Bobby can follow, the kid from his backyard appears and grabs his arm. “God’s gonna punish you!” A glass of milk shatters on a red and black tiled floor. The boy disappears. Bobby enters the church and the building begins to shake. Hymnals fall out of their pew racks. The members of the small choir vanish one by one. The lights overhead switch off one by one until Bobby is standing alone in darkness. A dapper man in a suit and overcoat walks up behind him. He spins a gold pocket watch into his palm.

“Hello, Mr. Singer. Your time’s up.”

He’s not as pretty as Tessa, but he is Bobby’s Reaper. Bobby’s never heard of one “showing up inside a guy’s custard.” Bobby’s in a coma. This is what happens. He can try and prolong the inevitable, but the Reaper can find him anywhere. “Even in this gin soaked rat maze.” Bobby hurries through a door and comes out back in his house. Sam and Dean are arguing over who’s the bigger badass – Chuck Norris or Jet Li. Bobby walks silently past Dean and slides open the doors to the kitchen. His mother is setting the table for dinner and scolding him to wash up before he comes downstairs. When she sees him she hisses that he’s filthy. “I don’t know what is wrong with you. It’s like you want him to get mad.” Bobby slams the door closed on that memory and turns just in time to catch the sawed off Rufus tosses to him. He tries again to get Rufus to listen, but he’s too focused on the job at hand. There’s a Reaper coming for him? “There’s a damn Reaper coming for all of us, Bobby.”

The medical team crashes through swinging doors and wheels Bobby into a trauma room. There’s a flurry of activity around him as a blonde doctor calls out orders. Sam and Dean follow in their wake looking terrified. Sam wants to know what’s going on, but Dean just cuts to the chase. When are they going to take the bullet out? “If we can get the swelling down. If it’s in a place we can get to. If … ”

Bobby has to keep moving. He leaves Rufus to the job and walks right into the ghost. She calls him a heart breaker and shoves her fist into his chest. On the table, Bobby starts to crash. Rufus irons the ghost, giving Bobby time to torch her bones. His vitals stabilize. Rufus, however, is out cold. “This would be the one job you damn near got yourself killed on.” The doctor throws open the curtain and offers a brief update. They’ll just have to wait and see. Dean allows himself a moment to be relieved that Bobby isn’t dead, and then the fear comes crashing back down on him. Sam stands pressed up against the wall looking absolutely lost.

“Don’t sit shiva for me yet, Bobby.” A nurse wheels Rufus out of the hospital. Bobby asks if he remembers what he said about his near death experience. Rufus saw the hallway of the apartment building he lived in as a kid, and he wanted out. “I’m not dying on no plaid carpet. No thank you.” So he started looking for a door out. Each one he opened had a chapter of his life behind it. His life flashing before his eyes one doorway at a time. “The good, the bad, the bloody.” He found his way out by going deep. The deep you don’t want to think about. “So you bury it. You shove other krep over it. And you don’t go there. Ever.”

“It’s an important door, Bobby”

Rufus finally realizes how weird Bobby is being about all this, providing the opening he needs to explain. “Bobby, are you trying to tell me I’m just one of your better memories?” The ground starts to rumble. Bobby needs his partner on this. Rufus is coming with. As they walk towards the hospital doors, Rufus tell him to focus and aim for his worst memory. Bobby has a metric ass tonne of those. The ground starts to shake again, and Rufus wonders why their killer ghost called Bobby a heartbreaker. Thanks for narrowing down the field, Rufus. They walk back into Bobby’s bedroom. The wine glass is shattered on the floor. Karen is devastated. “Everything’s a lie. Our whole life. Our vows. Everything.” He knew she wanted children. She doesn’t understand. Bobby looks gutted, but he has to let the memory play out. Karen’s composure breaks and she screams at him. “What does that even mean?!? You break everything to touch? What kind of excuse is that??” She turns away and steps on the broken glass with her bare foot. Bobby moves toward her but she yells at him to stay away from her.

“You. Broke. My. Heart. Bobby.”

She curls up on the bed, sobbing. Bobby is sorry. He never stopped being sorry. It’s an apology she can’t hear. It’s one he never got to make. Three days later a demon jumped her. “Biggest regret of my life, this fight. You’d think it was when I had to stab her to death. But, no. All through that I was thinking, ‘We never got to get past this.'”

“If I’d have known, I’d have said anything she wanted to hear.”

Time to try the door. They walk into the harsh bright light … of a fall afternoon in 1989. Bobby looks pretty good. “Must have drank less.” John wants Wee!Dean to practice with the double barrel (because he is terrible. John is. Not Dean.) Bobby hands him a glove instead. Today he’s going to throw a ball around, “just like a regular snot nosed little jerk.” Bobby enjoys the memory and then starts looking around for another door. He and Rufus walk toward the red double doors of the shed at the edge of the park. Rufus wants to know why Bobby – who is certainly less terrible than John – didn’t want kids. He won’t let the matter drop. Bobby insists it isn’t that deep. “Dad was a mean drunk. I figured I’d be just like him. And hey, look. I was right. No sense passing on the legacy.”

“You’re too hard on yourself. You’re more of a cranky drunk.”

I miss Rufus. *sigh* Bobby pulls open the shed doors on his mother dishing up a spoonful of peas and carrots for his father. She glances nervously at him. Waiting. He reaches for his whisky as Wee!Bobby runs into the kitchen. Ed doesn’t look up from his paper. “Hey, look. Crown prince decided to drop by for a late bite.” Ed dispenses with the grace. Just pass him the biscuits. Wee!Bobby’s hand shoots out, hoping to make up for being late for dinner. As he picks up the basket, he knocks his milk off the table with his elbow. His mother gasps as the glass shatters on the faded red and black linoleum. Bobby apologizes like he just shot his father’s dog. Ed tosses down his paper in disgust. What is wrong with Wee!Bobby? “YOU BREAK EVERYTHING YOU TOUCH!” His mother scurries to clean up the mess and puts on a bright smile. “Let’s just have a nice supper.” Ed cocks an eyebrow. A nice supper? He slides his plate off the table and onto the floor. “There’s your nice supper.” Ed drains his glass. Bobby is strung tight as a wire. He looks like he’s going to explode. He steps forward, shakes his head, and closes the door. “That was any given Tuesday night. Believe me, it was nothing special.” The house starts to shake. Bobby is running out of time. So he decides they’re going to stop the Reaper.

The boys grill the doctor for any hint of good news. He tries to be cautiously optimistic. “The bullet didn’t shatter. Only one hemisphere of his brain was injured. These are all positive things … but he’s far from out of the woods. Most of the time … cases like this … ” Sam finishes the sentence of him. “They die.” Dean gives him that look again. That look of STOP SAYING THAT. THE UNIVERSE IS GOING TO HEAR YOU. JINX! The doctor leaves. Sam looks sadly thoughtful. Dean looks like he wants to shoot something. This is really not the time to broach the subject of organ donation with him. Dean is only going to snarl say this once.

“He’s not gonna die. It’s one bullet. He’s gonna be fine, because he’s always fine. Why are you talking to me like he’s going to die?! Huh? I do my job. Do your jobs. Save him!” Organ donation guy – shockingly – keeps talking. Oh, son. Don’t you know the only appropriate response is to soil yourself and curl into a ball in the corner? Instead, he blandly tells Dean they’re doing everything they can. Dean throws a punch that whizzes past donation guy’s ear and shatters the glass in the wall case behind him. It happens so fast he doesn’t have time to flinch. He just gawps up at Dean in stunned surprise. Walk away. Now. Dean turns in the other direction and throws his shoulder into the door. He calms down and then ratchets right back up when he sees the black town car double parked in front of the hospital. He pounds on the tinted passenger window with his good hand. Did Dick swing by to finish the job? Come on Dick, let’s go. In front of all these nice people with their cell phone cameras at the ready and TMZ on speed dial. “See? Deciding to jump a famous guy ain’t all up side.” They’re coming for Dick. And he’s going to wish he could be killed. Dick laughs with a tinge of admiration. That’s a lot of conviction Dean has. “You’d really crush it on the motivational circuit.” Well, Dean does have a proven track record of success. He goes back inside, burns his tongue on his coffee, and glosses over the previous five minutes for Sam’s benefit. An insurance mook and a staring contest with Dick. No big. Sam reports that the swelling is down a little, they’ve taken Bobby off sedation and extubated him. He’s breathing on his own. Great news. When are they taking the bullet out? Sam slowly explains that it’s not an option. Not yet. The first step is removing the dead brain tissue, but only if the doctor thinks it’s worth the risk. Sam tries to have ‘the conversation’. The one where you know how it’s going to end and you try – somehow – to prepare for it. Dean full body rejects the idea that Bobby could die. “What do you want to do? You want to hug and say we made it through it when Dad died? We’ve been through enough.” Dean walks away. Sam sits and folds his hands, almost as if in prayer. Then he rubs at his palm. This is all too nightmarish not to be a hallucination, right?

In the library, Bobby searches his stacks for an old King James Bible. He pulls down one book and flips through it. The pages are blank. He doesn’t notice – or ignores – that there are faces missing from the photos on the shelves. He finds what he’s looking for, turns to the middle, and pulls out the large rosary fitted inside the pages. He’s picked up a few tricks over the years that should slow his Reaper down a hair. Rufus begins mixing up the delicious binding salad. Bobby walks into the kitchen to get the lamb’s blood out of the fridge. The light outside is extinguished as he passes each window. Finally, everything is ready. He Latinates over the rosary and Rufus drops a match into the salad bowl. “Cute. I’ve gotta admit. First time anyone’s pulled one on me while actually unconscious.” Pinning the Reaper like a bug isn’t going to stop Bobby dying. He’s seen the dark coming. “Cell by cell, that bullet’s killing your brain. You’re running out of places to hide. This trap won’t hold forever because this room won’t hold because you are going to die.”

“Come with me. Be done. You’ve earned it.”

“You’ve helped. You’ve done enough.”

“Or fight me. Stay here. And you know the drill.”

Bobby doesn’t care. “They’re my boys!”

Wee!Bobby appears. “The only way out is through. Lead the way.” Bobby takes his leave of Rufus and the Reaper and walks into the kitchen. His mother is on her knees on the floor, worrying at the broken dish and picking up peas. Ed pours himself another drink. He barks at Wee!Bobby to get a broom. Ed gets up and starts in on his wife. Bobby is like this because she lets him do whatever he wants. She smiles and tells her husband she’s almost done. Just relax and have another drink. Bobby sighs inwardly. He knows what comes next. Mrs. Singer doesn’t tell Ed what to do. He reaches back and slaps her across the mouth. Wee!Bobby runs off. Mrs. Singer looks up from the floor with accusing eyes. “Why do you always provoke him??” Ed looks right at Bobby. Nothing but ungrateful. “I was a kid! Kids ain’t supposed to be grateful! They’re supposed to eat your foot and break your heart, you selfish Richard! You died. And I was still so afraid I’d turn into you I never even had kids of my own.”

“Well, as fate would have it, I adopted two boys. And they grew up great. They grew up heroes.”

Bobby’s mother weeps on the floor. Her lip and nose are bloody. She whimpers at her husband to please, just stop. Wee!Bobby walks back into the room. He’s holding a rifle that’s almost as big as he is. Ed looks at him with amused surprise. A laugh bubbles out of him. The grown ups are talking. Ed will deal with Bobby later. He grabs his wife by the hair and pulls her off the floor. She cries out in pain and whispers at Bobby to go. Wee!Bobby puts the rifle to his shoulder. Leave his mother alone. He pulls the trigger and hits Ed in the forehead just over his right eye. Mrs. Singer looks at her husband’s dead body and then looks at her son in horror.

“God is going to punish you.”

Bobby walks over to his younger self. “You did what you had to do. This is where you learn that, they pretty much never say thanks when you save ’em. Now go get a shovel and bury the old man out behind the woodshed.”

It’s the only genetic case of bullet in the brain the Reaper has ever seen. A light begins to glow behind the back door.

Dr. Blonde tells the boys that Bobby is showing signs of responsiveness. They’re taking him up to surgery so squeeze in quick if they want to see him. Sam and Dean hover by his bedside. Sam takes Bobby’s hand and squeezes.

“Bobby, hey … just … … thanks. For everything.”

Bobby reaches up and opens his eyes. He pulls the oxygen mask from his face and Dean scrabbles around for a pen. He pulls a sharpie off the chart, and Bobby writes the numbers 4 5 4 8 9 on Sam’s palm. Message delivered, he relaxes, and lets his arm fall back on the bed. With great effort he gets out a single word.

“Iijits.”

He smiles. The tension in Sam and Dean’s faces disappears.

And then he’s gone.

But not before he enjoys one last memory. One last island that the bullet hasn’t gotten yet. Everything else is gone. It’s his last chance to move on. “For your own good, Bobby. Let go. They’ll be okay without you.”

Bobby grabs three beers from the fridge. He saved the best for last. The boys are on the sofa in the library, arguing over snacks. Sam got good snacks. He did not get licorice. “It’s made of dirt.” Dean au contraires. It’s a classic movie food! “It’s right up there with popcorn! It’s like little chewy pieces of heaven!” False. Licorice is gross. Junior Mints are your classic movie food. Bobby smiles as the debate rages until finally even his boys fade away.

“Well, Bobby? Stay or go?”

Supernatural moves to Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. on The CW. The new season begins on October 3rd.